Tuesday, March 26, 2024

The Francis Scott Key Bridge disaster is terrifying to me

 So, this isn't gonna be a heavy political post. But, the news story today involves the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore collapsing. I'm going to be honest, I've gone over this bridge a few times before. I don't live near Baltimore, but if my family is driving south on I-95 (and we all know how much I despise I-95, especially the whole Baltimore-DC area), there are four ways around Baltimore. There's 695 to the west of the city. These days, this is my go to route, but back in the day, it used to be all traffic. I remember between baltimore and DC we'd lose half a day just sitting in traffic, it was crazy. And again, better now, but back in the 90s and 2000s? Yeah, terrible. Then there's 95 and 895, which involve going through the city and taking tunnels under the inner harbor. Those suck and are traffic filled messes. And then there's the francis scott key bridge on the east side. And it was a toll route, but if you wanted to minimize your stress and maximize your sanity, this was THE route to go. Now, again, in more recent years, it hasn't been worth it to go that way. 695 has been pretty decent when I pass through so we just take that. 

 But yeah, now I'm just imagining myself going over this bridge, playing pokemon in the back seat, and then the bridge just collapsing because a big ship hit it. That sounds like a terrifying way to go. As reports indicate, the thing's like 185 feet off the water, you're basically falling a LONG way. 

 Now, at the same time, at least it happened in the middle of the night. Less traffic, but still, given how it's a big fricking bridge, there still probably were quite a few cars on it, and we don't even have a death count to my knowledge. It's just called a "mass casualty event." That's terrifying. I'm not sure if something went wrong with the ship, or it was negligence, or what, but yeah. That's terrible. I just wanted to mention it since, I have gone over that one before.

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